Appealing code enforcement will now cost you

NORWALK - Norwalk’s City Council voted to amend the city’s current regulations on code enforcement appeals, including the addition of a nearly $500 fee.

Regarding cases where a property had been declared substandard and requiring timely correction, property owners previously had five days to appeal to the Property Maintenance and Building Rehabilitation Board and/or City Council with no fee.

With Tuesday’s vote, property owners will now have 10 days to appeal their cases, albeit at the cost of $488.

City staff evaluated each appeal case over the last three months to determine the average amount of staff time expended to prepare, respond, and present to the appeal body. Staff anticipates that the increased revenue collected will offset staff costs based on the number of appeals submitted.

The city cannot collect an appeal fee from appeals to the Board.

Council’s 4-1 approval vote was stalled only minorly by concerns from Vice Mayor Luigi Vernola and councilman Leonard Shryock, the latter of which being the only councilmember to ultimately vote in opposition.

“This could potentially could blow out somebody who doesn’t have a lot of money,” said Shryock. “I’m okay with the extending of the five to ten days; that should be in place anyway. I don’t really like it in terms of the timing. I think we should do this as part of the budget process…”

“It just has a little hint of ‘hey we’re going to knock down some of our work by making it cost prohibitive,’ and the only one that impacts is poor people.”